A Mission, a Mouse, and a Mess
by Dragon-Sigma
Summary: Sucy is brewing potions again, and Akko wonders what she's up to.


"Sucy! What is all this stuff?" Akko coughed. She dropped her books on the bed next to Lotte in a predictable flurry of scribbled-on-papers and detention notices. She'd defeated a dragon, and yet she still managed to somehow be late to class on a daily basis. The one day she'd showed up on time, it had been Saturday, which she had only realized after waiting for nearly an hour in an empty classroom.

Cautiously, she approached the table and stared at the items laid out. A few hissing flasks of brighty colored potions, powders of various descriptions, a mouse in a cage, a small paper bag of-

"Is this the taffy Sara gave me? It was strawberry! My favorite flavor!"

"Akko," Lotte said, "you've been given so much candy in the past month that you'd get fat if you tried to eat it all!"

"Fine." Lotte was right; Akko had been given an incredible number of gifts after saving the school. She had seen Diana staring jealously at the cards and candy and charms. She'd tried to share, but Diana had walked away in a huff when Akko had offered a chocolate bar.

"What is all this for?" she asked again.

Sucy didn't look up, only brushed her long hair away from the bubbling cauldron of green liquid she was examining, peered closely at it, and scrawled a notation on a scrap of parchment in dark pen. Akko turned her puzzled look on Lotte.

"Experiments," the girl said casually, as if this happened every day. Which, to tell the truth, often was the case.

"I know that!" Akko replied, indignant. "I just want to know why this one involves a mouse!" She pointed at the little furry creature in the small cage at the back of the table. "Where did you get that? The forest?"

"It's not a mouse," Sucy said, still not looking away from her work. "It's our flying instructor." She pulled a sphere of some description from an embroidered pouch and dropped it into the cauldron, causing a rush of steam that filled the room and made Akko cough again. Akko sat down on the bed and looked at Lotte, her eyes wide with alarm. Lotte, seemingly undisturbed by that revelation, simply pulled her glasses off her face and wiped away the fog. "She's joking, Akko," Lotte said, then replaced her glasses and looked up. "Aren't you?"

But Sucy didn't reply, only gave the two a brief smile before returning to her work. Lotte laughed nervously. "She's probably joking," she repeated.

Within the next few minutes, the taffy was chopped up and dissolved into the potion, which turned from green to a startling shade of pink, a few pinches of powder and a few leaves were added, and the whole thing was stirred several times with a wand before Sucy seemed satisfied. Next came the mouse. Sucy flicked the cage open and lifted the struggling animal out.

"Don't hurt it!" Akko protested.

"Don't worry," Sucy said, and somehow that was even more worrying. She cleared a circle on the table and dropped the rodent in, where it sniffed at the various bottles in the way of an escape. With a flourish, she pulled a dipper of potion out of the cauldron and splashed in on the mouse.

Akko held her breath, and beside her, Lotte seemed to be doing the same. A moment later, there was a squeak, and the mouse was suddenly the size of a rabbit and bright pink. The room smelled of strawberries.  
"There. Exactly as planned," Sucy declared, reaching under the table and pulling out a cardboard box. She lifted the still-confused once-mouse by the scruff of the neck and put it in the box.

"And what was the plan, exactly?" Lotte asked.

"I'm going to release this in the potions professor's office," Sucy explained, "It's going to eat all of the papers. Therefore, no test tomorrow."

"You made a potion to get out of a potions test?" Akko couldn't see the logic in this.

Sucy simply nodded and walked out the door, carrying her experiment.

"That mouse wasn't really a person, right?" Akko asked after a few moments.

"I hope not," Lotte said. Then she sighed, looking sadly at the table, which was still covered in scattered ingredients. "Whatever it is, we still have to clean all this up."


End file.
